Early Korean churches had difficulties in missionary work.
The difficulty was that men and women worship in one space for them who People of that era could not understand this. However, the Korean church overcame this difficulty through wisdom. The wisdom was to make two separated entrances for men and women in a church. When entering and exiting the church, people's rejection could disappear because men and women entered and exited through different doors. Thus, the church could reach people more easily. However, this was not something the church unconditionally accepted and adapted to the circumstances of the times. This is because these two doors do not separate the space for men to worship and the space for women to worship. This is because the Korean churches at that time kept the value that they must abide by, the value of being equal brothers and sisters in the Lord.
The changes initiated by COVID-19 put the Korean church in crisis. This crisis made the Korean church think about the direction of ministry in the post-pandemic era.
Among these concerns, it made me think a lot about the direction of the church's content development. In this crisis, this study attempts to reestablish the old wisdom 'two doors' through which the early Korean churches overcame the crisis of the times as a new strategy. These are ‘the door of consumer-oriented online content’ and ‘the door of small groups’. Through these two doors, the Korean church will have to keep the essence of the church, 'gathering' and 'preaching the gospel'.
In this study, the case of Gwangju Yanglim Church, which developed contents through the strategy of 'two doors', was selected and studied. Gwangju Yanglim Church's 'Yangrim On' content development process was introduced and the strengths and weaknesses of each case were discussed. While conducting this study, I’ve discovered the need for unity among local churches which was not thought at the beginning of the study. This discovery was expressed as 'two GATEs' in this study. These are the ‘GATE of Base Cooperation’ and ‘GATE of Part Collaboration’. When the local church creates and develops the two GATES, it is predicted that a channel will be prepared to bring many people to the church community and deliver the gospel to the world with a bigger door.
I expect that this paper will be contributed to one of the ways to help churches and pastors who living in the post-pandemic era.
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